Sonia for greater say of state units in deciding candidates

Gearing up the party for the Lok Sabha elections, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday asked state units to desist from sending a single line resolution authorising her to choose the candidates.

Gearing up the party for the Lok Sabha elections, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday asked state units to desist from sending a single line resolution authorising her to choose the candidates. Gandhi, who held a meeting with party General Secretaries as also CWC members in-charge of states, asked them to ensure that pradesh election committees were in place at the earliest.

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She also wanted that the Screening Committees be constituted at the AICC level in each state which should be asked to send a panel of three names for seats where there was no unanimity.

Besides most of the General Secretaries, senior leader A K Antony, who is in-charge of party affairs in Maharashtra, was also present.

Antony had headed a high level party committee last year which made a series of recommendations to gear up the party for elections. The Antony Committee had wanted the party to decide the tickets well in advance to avoid the last-minute chaos and confusion.

Sometime ago, Gandhi had directed senior leaders to draw time bound programmes and strategies to re-energise the party cadres in all states.

In her last interaction with the party MPs during the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting last month, Gandhi asked all of them to gear up for the parliamentary polls.